Saturday, May 30, 2009

On Tuesday, June 2, my guest is Christopher Seufert. Christopher Seufert runs Mooncusser Films LLC, specializing in both the production and distribution of documentaries, educational films, music videos, artist profiles, and corporate /promotional multimedia. He is also a sound recordist and photographer.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

From Dan's Journal: "It’s interesting how Rita Schiano took a real life event involving her father and turned it into a wonderfully, charming story about one woman’s quest to find out the truth about her father’s murder. Anna Matteo, the main character in this story, discovers that her father was killed what may have a mob hit because of his gambling debts. The more she digs deeper into this long ago event, the closer she comes to the truth. “Painting The Invisible Man’ is a witty and pleasurable book." (Read full review here)

From LuxuryReading: "Rita Schiano creates a cast of multifaceted characters who are the backdrop to this first person tale of self discovery. Her liberal use of flashbacks create a sense of being “in Anne’s head” and living Anne’s life. In Painting the Invisible Man, Rita touches upon families, grief, loss, sexuality, and “coming of age”…all different parts of the human experience." (Read full review here)

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

It's those internal conversations, those inner thoughts that often give the reader insight into your character's soul. There are two ways to approach this: the indirect thought and the direct thought.

With the indirect approach, the character's thought is more of an observational commentary. For example, if you are writing a story about a child waiting to be picked up at school, you might write: The boy worried that his mother may have forgotten him, or worse...she may have had a horrible car accident. This is an indirect character thought because you did not write the exact wording of the character's inner dialogue.

A direct character thought is written as internal dialogue. Some authors use italics to signal that the words are the character's thoughts. Using the above scenario, you might write: Billy sat on the steps outside the gymnasium. The schoolyard was quiet. Maybe Mom didn't see the note I left on the table. Or maybe she had one of her episodes. Last time that happened Dad yelled at her, said he didn't want her driving anymore.

When writing direct thoughts do not use quotation marks. A tag, such as he thought, is optional.